Daedalus2097

Woop! Looking forward to this, it was a great event last year!

The 1084 uses composite sync for analogue signals, which is a separately defined signal from the digital sync you get with e.g. VGA and RGBI that has positive (active high) and negative (active low) variations. It doesn't need to be switched as a result.

It's worth pointing out that GBS-Control is a hardware/firmware modification for the GBS-8200 that makes a dramatic improvement to its functionality. You can read it here: https://ramapcsx2.github.io/gbs-control/

All Amiga keyboards use the same communication protocol, so you can use any Amiga keyboard with the A1000 once it's connected correctly. The original cable could form the basis of an adaptor - if you can fit a 5-pin 180-degree DIN socket to the other end through whatever connections you need, you could plug an A2000/3000 keyboard into that. Unfortunately, you can't plug a PC keyboard in directly, but there are many adaptors out there both DIY and commercial that will allow the use of PC keyboards. If you're handy with a soldering iron, there are various projects on Aminet from back in the day that use a PIC chip to translate from PS/2 to Amiga protocol, for example. As for the switch, I don't know what type it is exactly, but chances are it's a standard form factor part and an equivalent replacement will be easily available.

Most of the existing solutions are a little bit niche, existing primarily on Github pages and in retro computing shops. This may well be the first time the author has seen such a device in relatively mainstream articles and so has latched onto it because of that. Also, while some SD cards do support very high speeds, it's only relatively recently that they can be maxed out without paying crazy money, and even then you need to go looking. I've got lots lying around the place, and it's only the most recent two I've bought that exceed the 80MB/s write speed a good SCSI setup is capable of, and even then, while my latest cards (Sandisk Extreme) are listed as 90MB/s write speed, they're also only classed V30, which means they're only guaranteed to sustain 30MB/s on continuous writing. Even Amigas can beat that at 40MB/s with the right upgrades. Having M.2 support makes sense from what was mentioned there too - plenty of them around as a result of upgrades so it's a nice touch that it supports them too.

Green and red colours on the screen are normal for the boot process of DiagROM as it tests the chip RAM. The very slow output is strange, but given the text is coherent at least we know the bus between the CPU, ROMs and Paula is ok. Very slow output can be caused by a couple of things - bus errors/timeouts (no acknowledgement from addresses that would normally respond instantly) or a failure with the interrupts are my first two thoughts, so I would check both of those areas for damage.

Yup, Amiga Forever is built on WinUAE, but the interface is different. It's a while since I used Amiga Forever (and then it was only briefly), but you need to add the HDF images in a "Media" tab or some such within the AmigaForever profile configuration. It should become obvious when you're editing the config - it's a pretty common feature to use.

Also, are you starting the games from floppy? It could be that the game simply doesn't set a screenmode, so on boot it defaults back to NTSC and that's just what the game uses. The actual screenmode used for Workbench doesn't have any bearing on this, but using the early startup menu (holding down both mouse buttons) lets you select a PAL or NTSC mode for booting. It's worth setting that to PAL and then booting the game to see if it helps.

Nice! Yeah, Psygnosis were known to use Amigas well after Commodore had gone bust and the Amiga disappeared from the mainstream, so there's an outside chance of some interesting finds on those disks. Later on in particular though, they used expanded, more powerful machines (A1200s, A4000s) for the main work so it's probably more likely the home / spare gaming machine. But enjoy!

Yep, that's a very clean-looking machine, nice find! Now, heed the advice about checking batteries on the RAM expansion and enjoy

What aspect of the desktop graphics disappointed you? ECS gives a couple of new graphics modes, but otherwise is very similar to the OCS chipset, including bandwidth. This means that it won't really give you any improvement in terms of graphics (speed, number of colours), and only helps if you want to use ~31KHz modes or super highres modes, both of which are *very* slow on ECS and limited to 4 colours. As for resolution, I tend to use 640x512 (PAL) interlaced when I'm using a native Workbench screenmode, and increase the overscan settings to mostly fill my display, giving a final resolution of 720x564 or something like that. The NTSC equivalent would be 640x400 (720x480 with overscan). Of course, that will flicker horribly on some displays, so it might not be a realistic option depending on the display you're using.

Sometimes a connector pulls double duty on these monitors. For example, the Video connector probably does colour composite video, and also luma when the monitor is in Y/C mode (there's probably a switch somewhere to switch modes, and will put a colour composite signal in greyscale when Y/C is selected). Ideally you'd have both labelled on the same connector there, but hey ho. I've seen both the male and female variants of the DE9 connector on Commodore monitors, both supporting analogue RGB input but naturally you need the correct cable. You can also find them with a SCART connector for RGB input, and with the DIN connector that makes 4 different RGB connectors used on Commodore monitors. These monitors weren't made by Commodore themselves - they were loosely specced by Commodore and then built by companies like Philips and Daewoo, who presumably did whatever was cheapest that met the Commodore spec, and sometimes even to suit other machines too like the C128 and even the BBC Micro (some 1084 variants can be found with Acorn branding). So long as they also supplied the correct cable, it didn't really matter a great deal. As for digital RGB, yep, it was a simple output likely intended for compatibility with CGA-style monitors that were available at the time, but it was kept through all the models, including the AGA A1200 and 4000. Definitely, greyscale is a much better proposition... Still, I'm sure Workbench was perfectly useable with such a display - Windows had similar high contrast colour schemes for a long time.

Yep, the 1084 is ideal for the Amiga, and with any look it'll come with a suitable cable. If not, order one from your favourite Amiga accessory dealer or make one up using good quality RGB cable. I can't remember if there are different connectors used on the -D but on the whole, the 1084 monitors came with a variety of connectors so it might be worth waiting to see what it needs before ordering one.

Not trying to be too pedantic, but the Amiga also has digital RGB out on the RGB port. It's not pretty though... It's essentially CGA colour rather than a full digital representation of the analogue RGB output, and is hardly ever used. But the C128 also had that output so some Commodore monitors (e.g. the 1902) did support it.

Yup, that's all correct. The "wedge" Amigas (A500, 600, 1200) only take DC voltages from the PSU, so the source of that power doesn't matter so long as the PSU outputs are correct. In general using RGB is just fine. Composite will be PAL-encoded, but the only difference with RGB is the 50Hz refresh rate instead of 60Hz. This shouldn't be a problem with most displays (all Commodore displays I've ever seen support both 50Hz and 60Hz), but there's always a chance there's a 60Hz-only variant out there.